Exotic Fantasy Recommendations

[Templarorder123]

There is this thread. Ignore the title - it's a discussion on all sorts of sff in an Ancient Egyptian setting.

Christian Jacq writes mystery/YA stuff, but not really fantasy; more set in the actual dynastic empires of Ancient Egypt. Rick Riordan has a supernatural Egyptian series, similar to his Olympian books, but not got round to them.

Thank you, Abernovo! Really loving the thread!

And thanks for the recommendations.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I've heard of Saladin Ahmed's book, but my main interest is Bronze Age/Mesopatamia/. I'd love it if more authors could put more Bronze Age Civilizations into a fantasy novel. Do you know any books that could have Ancient Egyptian influences?

Thank you for the recommendations!

Wilbur Smith writes pseudo fiction that's interlaced with ambiguous instances of the fantastical. Warlock and the River God are set in Ancient Egypt and The Seventh Scroll is set in modern day but references Ancient Egypt through flashbacks. I remember really enjoying these, at the time I was only reading fantasy and went into them with that mindset. After reading these I became more interested in HF as a result.

I remember reading them and getting a real sense of the exotic, something completely different from the normal westernized faux medieval settings where everyone has a modern sensibility. I think when historic novels are more accurate in terms of the prevailing treatment of women, lower classes and minorities it can make for a more uncomfortable but authentic read.

This is a really interesting post and has spurred me to think about reading more non-western work this year. Hoorah!

 

[The Big Peat]

I've just remembered that Guy Gavriel Kay has done some stuff set in not-China, which might be very much of interest.

 

[williamjm]

Chris Wooding's Braided Path trilogy was an epic fantasy with a lot of Japanese influence - I remember it being described once as 'X-Men in Feudal Japan'.

Ted Chiang's short story Tower of Babylon might be of interest, an attempt to portray how the Mesopotamians might have built the Tower of Babel.

It's perhaps a more modern setting than you're looking for, but the setting for Max Gladstone's Two Serpents Rise and Last First Snow had a definite Meso-American influence to it, the books are set in the city which feels like a merging of Tenochtitlan and Los Angeles.

I've just remembered that Guy Gavriel Kay has done some stuff set in not-China, which might be very much of interest.

I was going to suggest that as well - I really liked both Under Heaven and River of Stars, set during the equivalents of the Tang and Song dynasties respectively.

Julian May's Saga of the Exiles has quite a variation of peoples, as do the Galactic Milieu novels that came after.

I like May's series but I'm not sure I'd recommend them for this topic given that they largely take place in Europe and North America.

 

[Templarorder123]

Thank you for the replies!

 

[Luiglin]

I like May's series but I'm not sure I'd recommend them for this topic given that they largely take place in Europe and North America.

The original post asked about books that contained different races/peoples not geographical locations. While, I agree that May's series do not not specifically concentrate on Indian/Chinese/Japanese/Mesopotamian races, they are diverse enough to be different to the normal fantasy/scifi.